Failure…

1. Saw a dead person on interstate 95 after a major car accident. Made me feel sick to the bones to know that it was a person under that white sheet (the police lifted up the sheet about the same time I was passing by). It’s even more sickening to realise that it was a small person.

2. Got pulled over for speeding (73 in a 50) by a hot cop, but I was waaaay to flustered about trying hard not to get a ticket to even make small talk! If he would have changed his tone of voice, I would have been less afraid. I almost cried my way out of it, if I had to. He let me go with a warning because he pitied me, seeing I couldn’t get myself to stop shaking. -.- Failed completely to woo the cop.

XD

Fight The Urge, Young one!

Fight the urge to what? Smack people every single time when I mention that I am fluent-enough-to-understand-German they would instantly ask me: ,,Sprechen Sie Deutsch?” When I reply with, ,,Ja, aber spreche ich ein bisschen. Ich habe in der Universität nur eins und halb Jahre gelernt”, all I get after that are nervous smiles and a continuality of English.

If I had a pence every time I hear people ask me that, I would have £2 by now.

However, that’s besides the point. I have to fight the urge to watch Angels and Demons again. I’ve already watched it twice and I try to find any excuse to watch it again. I’m so pathetic when it comes to things like this.

You’re looking at a big fan of Dan Brown here and in combination with having Ewan Mcgregor as one of my favourite actors, it is seriously unhealthy.

Granted, he played a priest and he filled the description of the good-looking Carmelengo of Dan Brown’s text perfectly, but come on!!! Do I need to say more? This is the fan-girl in me squealing.

Away from the train of thought that Ewan Mcgregor is playing a good-looking priest, Angels and Demons wasn’t a bad movie. Okay, I am being modest, it was HELL-A-GOOD! Blood, body parts all over the place, guns, big loud booms, more adjectives that begin with a “B”, the list is almost endless!

My friend, who went to see the premiere in IMAX told me she thought it was okay and it was predictable. My only response to her was: “I’d read the book, how much more predictable can it be when I already know how it is going to end”. With that in mind, many critics who do fall into this category would judge the film by its justice to the original text. Okay, the movie-making-process contributed a lot to this film and many things were changed, but do we really go to the movies to judge them if they are truly true to the text? Sure, we want to do Dan Brown some justice and not entire kill Angels and Demons all together, but don’t we go out to the movies just to spend the price of two McDonald’s Happy Meals to see a movie and just to see a movie and not conduct a full scale scientific research?

Sure, there are those who meticulously judge the film with a magnifying glass, but please correct if I’m wrong, most of the movies that the critics give C – or D, turn out to be amazing, right? Please tell me how many times has that happened before? Tom Hanks even looks decent in this one compared to The Da Vinci Code! Don’t get me wrong, Tom Hanks all the way, whoo, whoo, whoo; I like the other film too, but I like this one more.

They were number 1 at the box office last week and for a brief moment of good, divine glory (my horrible attempt at a joke), was ahead of Star Trek (don’t get me started on how much James T. Kirk would make many woman turn into a Trekky in a split moment). So in your face, Rottentomatoes!

Oh, how childish of me. I respect others’ opinions about the film and this is just my opinion in the sea of many. However, if I have the opportunity to see it again, I would.

Wait…Did I just write a film review?

P.S.-off topic: Coldplay was amazing!!!

WHAT THE *Bleep* ARE SPURGOS?

I’d just finished my spring semester at school. Such sweet  and tragic sorrow that I got an A- in my Macroeconomics class and that’s sad for a 4.0 economics student. Good, I got a gloating moment out of my system.

My German professor held a class titled European Studies: Identities of Societies of the European Union. Great class for a Europe-lite like myself. In the class, we had to pick a country to represent as an EU member. I wanted to do the UK, but being English, I wasn’t allowed. I wanted to do Germany, but being too slow, I’d missed my chance. I wanted to do Italy, but I wasn’t Italian enough. I wanted to do Switzerland, but realised that they are not an EU member. Damn that dirty money. So I’d chosen the country I would love to work in when I get into the EU or the UN: Lithuania (with that package, I got Latvia too).

As an end of the semester project, we did an EU fair and the Eastern Bloc (my group) was the best out of the entire class, to my idea (Historical factoid heavily implied), of course. Our “Eastern Bloc” group decided to bring in some type of food from their represented nation and I made SPURGOS! What are Spurgos you ask? Go here for a picture and the recipe: http://jeremiahnorris.wordpress.com/2008/12/11/how-about-some-holiday-spurgos/ . Basically, they are Lithuanian donuts.

I warn you they absolutely do not look like Dave Norris’s Spurgos on his website. We did our best, but yeast is so evil to work with. Besides, I made them at work. XD

The finished are on the top row. The bottom are testers.

Finished Spurgos in their respectable Box

Donuts are fried for those who didn't know...Sorry to break it to you.

I guess they are okay looking…

Here are some of the pictures from the EU Fair:

Our beautiful table representing the Eastern European Countries. Ignore the Red Table Cloth, if you know what I mean. That was unintentional!

My EU Class...can you find me?

We had beer, too, but don’t tell anyone that. The Czech beer tastes like Heineken without the aftertaste. Very good stuff. So, kids, you’d learned what Spurgos are and that Arden sounds like an alcoholic today. Please join us next time for more educational education…

I want to play too!

These “plans for the summer”,or “summer plans” posts have been popping up on blogs all over the web, so I thought, “Hey! I want to get in on the fun!”

I dread the fact that I will not be able to stop myself from turning this post from “plans for the summer 2009″ to “plans for world domination—the future”. I have the tendency to plan and overplan a future I cannot see. Oh well!

Forget it, I’d changed my mind, this is a quick run of what to expect (what I have to do, more like) in 2009!

1. Make a list of things to do (Check)
2. Make more lists of things to do
3. Take three (or four) classes in Summer B: Intro to Philosophy, Creative Writing and Intro to Anthropology and a possibility: British Lit (I’m way too academic for myself sometimes).
4. Get at least one degree before moving/transferring
5. Go to California with family to see family (pig out if I can).
6. Complete German Language training! Ja, ich denke, dass dieses der beste Plan auf der Liste ist.
7. Pack (un)necessary things for Scotland.
8. Move to Scotland.
9. OKTOBERFEST IN MUNICH WITH JULIA!
10. Meet lots of new people.
11. Make a stand guard at Buckingham palace blush!
12. Internship with the European Union.
13. Finish and publish my article on the Titanic (inevitable).
14. Speak Welsh.
15. Go to London, buy £200 worth of books at Foyles that I will not get to read until three years later.
16. Buy a Globetrotter luggage set:
    

    

    Aren’t they Gorgeous?

17. Finish my Titanic model.
18. Be/Trust/Believe in myself.

I don’t think you can finish a list without reassuring yourself of who you are. There will be more, of course, but this will suffice for now. I good dictator is a quiet dictator!